Short answer
Your FortiGates keep enforcing policy locally during a management-plane outage, so traffic is not dropped. FortiManager only configures and orchestrates devices; it does not inspect traffic itself.
In detail
How FirstNet protects the management plane:
- Production FortiManager runs as a high-availability (HA) pair
- Configuration is backed up daily
- A documented recovery runbook is in place
- By default, FortiManager runs as a VM on FirstNet Private Cloud in South Africa
During an outage, the main impact is that new policy changes cannot be pushed until management is restored. Existing policies, VPNs and security profiles on your firewalls keep working as configured.
FortiManager also keeps device-level and ADOM-level revision history, so configurations can be rolled back to a known-good state if recovery ever needs it.
Incidents are logged through FirstNet's Rapid Response desk, and FirstNet escalates product or platform faults into Fortinet TAC under FortiCare, so you do not have to manage the vendor yourself.
Source: FirstNet Hosted Firewall & Network Security service page →
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